Ida no longer hurricane

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - Gulf Coast residents hunkered down at home and in shelters Monday as a rare late-season tropical storm headed their way, bringing with it the potential for high winds, flooding and up to 8 inches of rain in some places.

After a quiet Atlantic storm season, people took the year's first serious threat in stride.

"Nobody has gotten into panic mode," said Bobbie Buerger, who owns a general store on Dauphin Island, south of Mobile, Ala., where residents were buying bread and candles Monday.

Earlier, heavy rain in Ida's wake triggered flooding and landslides in El Salvador that killed 134 people. One mudslide covered the town of Verapaz, about 30 miles outside the capital, San Salvador, before dawn Sunday.

Ida started out as the third hurricane of this year's Atlantic season, which ends Dec. 1, but weakened to a tropical storm Monday, with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph).

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it was expected to weaken further before making landfall along the Gulf Coast sometime Tuesday morning. Rain had already started falling in many spots by Monday afternoon.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, where governors declared states of emergency.

Residents elsewhere in the Southeast braced for heavy rain. In north Georgia, which saw historic flooding in September, forecasters said up to 4 more inches could soak the already-saturated ground as Ida moved across the state.

There were no plans for mandatory evacuations, but authorities in some coastal areas opened shelters and encouraged people near the water or in mobile homes to leave. Many schools closed, and several cruise ships were delayed.

Monday afternoon, Ida was located about 115 miles (185 km) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and about 220 miles (350 km) south-southwest of Pensacola. It was moving north-northwest near 18 mph (30 kph).

On Pensacola Beach, Glenn Wickham stood on the roof of a three-story house, securing metal shutters as his crew moved furniture to the upper floors. They were hired by a homeowner who wasn't taking any chances.

"We doing all this out of an abundance of caution — I really don't think this is going to be anything," Wickham said.

On the beach, Dan Conell took shelter in a pavilion so he could watch the churning Gulf. The Kansas City, Mo., resident, in town for a conference, was seeing the ocean for the first time.

"This is amazing," he said. "It is beautiful."

Some beach businesses put plywood on their windows and emergency officials planned to close bridges on and off the beach when winds picked up later Monday. Emergency yellow trucks with flashing red lights and red flags drove up and down the mostly deserted beach warning people to stay out of the water.

Panhandle military bases sent nonessential personnel home early and moved aircraft inland. Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding told most employees at three shipyards in Mississippi and Louisiana to stay home.

In Robertsdale, Ala., a handful of evacuees showed up at the Baldwin County Coliseum, which had enough room to shelter 3,800 people.

Jorg Schlagheck, 47, a cyclist from Brampton, Canada, was staying at a state park in the Florida Panhandle on Sunday night when a worker there told him about the storm and gave him a ride across the state line to the shelter.

"I knew there was a storm coming, but I don't have a radio on the bike, so I didn't know what it was," he said. "Looking outside now, I saved myself a lot of trouble."

Nancy Box, 68, of Gulf Shores, Ala., said she hoped the storm fizzled but did not want to chance riding it out in her elevated town house on the beach.

"They said the waves were going to be pretty high," she said. "The last time there was a storm, they came over the berm, and I don't swim."

Forecasters predicted Ida's storm surge could raise water levels 3 to 5 feet above normal.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, officials were concerned about hundreds of people still living in federally issued trailers and mobile homes after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Fred Everhardt, a councilman in southeast Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish, was frustrated driving around the Delacroix community, counting camper-trailers he worried would get loose and clog bayous or ram into homes elevated and rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.

He said local officials are taking the situation seriously, but he doesn't think all residents are.

"We thought the season was over with, people are just hoping (this) just blows away, it doesn't come," he said. "When you're in parish government ... we've got to prepare for the worst and hope for the best."

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Associated Press writers Bill Kaczor in Pensacola, Suzette Laboy in Miami, Becky Bohrer in New Orleans, Dorie Turner in Atlanta, Jay Reeves in Robertsdale, Ala., and Bob Johnson in Montgomery, Ala., contributed to this report.